In a conventional game of roulette at a casino, the croupier attending the table withdraws the chips of non-winning bets from the table following each spin of the roulette wheel. The croupier does this by gathering all such chips together by drawing them from the betting area and elsewhere, laterally of the table onto a longitudinal side-wall of the table. They are then drawn by the croupier against this wall and along it towards the head of the table-top where the roulette wheel is located, for discharge through an opening in the table adjacent the roulette wheel. The opening leads to a chip sorting machine, namely, a so-called “chipping machine” that collects and sorts the chips for re-use.
While the croupier is marshalling the non-winning chips from the betting area and elsewhere to the discharge opening, his/her attention to the disposition of chips remaining in the betting area is, or readily can be, diverted to an extent that enables interference with the remaining chips of the betting area to go unnoticed. In particular, the location of one or more of the remaining chips may be changed, even by a small amount, for fraudulent purposes to enhance the win attributable to them.